Your Right to Know

WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans pressed President Barack Obama yesterday to delay a
requirement under his health-care law that Americans obtain insurance next year after the
administration gave employers a one-year reprieve from having to provide it to their workers.

The U.S. Treasury and White House announced last week that businesses would not be required to
offer health coverage, or pay a fine, in 2014 because the administration had yet to issue final
regulations in time for employers to comply.

The move sparked a new wave of Republican efforts to discredit the health-care-reform law and
raise questions over whether the effort will be launched as planned.

The request came in a letter yesterday that was signed by House Speaker John Boehner, R-West
Chester, and 10 other leading House Republicans. They asked Obama for a detailed explanation of the
delay of the “employer mandate,” asking for a reply from the president by Aug. 1.

But White House spokesman Jay Carney said the individual mandate will go forward because Obama’s
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act provides financial assistance to help lower-income
people pay for insurance while exempting those who cannot afford coverage.

“Next year, millions of Americans will get the help they need to purchase quality health
insurance they currently cannot afford,” he said.

That financial assistance, coming in the form of refundable tax credits, will continue to be
available to individuals in 2014, the IRS said yesterday in a three-page ruling, which confirmed
the administration’s reprieve.

Businesses, spared from penalties for not reporting employee health-care information to the IRS
next year, are encouraged to comply voluntarily, the agency said. The agency will publish details
on how to report that information later this summer.